UK Telegraph: European Mobile Giants Plot Secret Rival to Google

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Mobile giants plot secret rival to Google
By Juliette Garside, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:54pm GMT 03/02/2007



Europe's biggest telecoms groups are aiming to create a mobile phone search engine that could challenge Yahoo! and Google, the US giants.

Vodafone, France Telecom, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia and one American network, Cingular, are among the companies that will come together for secret, high-level talks at the mobile industry's biggest annual trade show in Barcelona next week.


Declining call revenues are driving network operators together to compete against Google and Yahoo! search engines

Faced with declining revenues as calls become cheaper, network operators are determined to secure a large slice of the lucrative search advertising market.

In the UK alone, more than 20 per cent of subscribers are expected to have access to mobile internet at broadband speeds by the end of 2007, which should prompt a dramatic increase in the use of search engines via mobile phones.

The initiative will come as a surprise to Google and Yahoo!, which have lost no time in striking deals with mobile operators and handset makers. But the mobile industry believes it can retain a greater share of advertising revenues by developing its own service. .....(more)

The complete article is at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/04/cnsearch04.xml